. Too almighty careful. He was afraid to chance a mix with me.
He thought I had more fight left in me than I had. So you see I got that
much of his goat anyway.

"An' he couldn't get me. He didn't get me. An' in the twentieth we stood
in the middle of the ring an' exchanged wallops even. Of course, I'd
made a fine showin' for a licked man, but he got the decision, which
was right. But I fooled 'm. He couldn't get me. An' I fooled the gazabos
that was bettin' he would on short order."

At last, as dawn came on, Billy slept. He groaned and moaned, his face
twisting with pain, his body vainly moving and tossing in quest of
easement.

So this was prizefighting, Saxon thought. It was much worse than she
had dreamed. She had had no idea that such damage could be wrought with
padded gloves. He must never fight again. Street rioting was preferable.
She was wondering how much of his silk had been lost, when he mumbled
and opened his eyes.

"What is it?" she asked, ere it came to her that his eyes were unseeing
and that he was in delirium.

"Saxon!... Saxon!" he called.

"Yes, Billy. What is it?"

His hand fumbled over the bed where ordinarily it would have encountered
her.

Again he called her, and she cried her presence loudly in his ear. He
sighed with relief and muttered brokenly:

"I had to do it.... We needed the money."

His eyes closed, and he slept more soundly, though his muttering
continued. She had heard of congestion of the brain, and was frightened.
Then she remembered his telling her of the ice Billy Murphy had held
against his head.

Throwing a shawl over her head, she ran to the Pile Drivers' Home on
Seventh street. The barkeeper had just opened, and was sweeping out.
From the refrigerator he gave her all the ice she wished to carry,
breaking it into convenient pieces for her. Back in the house, she
applied the ice to the base of Billy's brain, placed hot irons to his
feet, and bathed his head with witch hazel made cold by resting on the
ice.

He slept in the darkened room until late afternoon, when, to Saxon's
dismay, he insisted on getting up.

"Gotta make a showin'," he explained. "They ain't goin' to have the
laugh on me."

In torment he was helped by her to dress, and in torment he went forth
from the house so that his world should have ocular evidence that the
beating he had received did not keep him in bed.

It was another kind of pride, different from a woman's, and Saxon
wondered if